Ministry Focus
As a Church Planting Specialist for the Southwest, Steve is working to facilitate a church-planting movement in an area that includes southern Nevada, southern Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and west Texas. He will be setting up church-planting prayer networks among pastors, helping devise local church-planting strategies, networking to connect needs with resources, and recruiting, training and coaching church planters.
Faith Story
Steve's parents, fifth generation Mormons, came to faith in Christ as a result of a Baptist church plant meeting in a storefront just a few months before Steve was born.
He was the first Farnworth born into a Christian home for many generations. As a 5-year-old he remembers kneeling with his mother before the couch, and with simple childhood faith trusting in Christ alone for his salvation from sin.
Steve first felt called into ministry during a chapel service at Bible Camp as a junior higher. This call was reaffirmed as he attended Campus Crusade for Christ training and led Bible studies as a high school student, and later led youth ministry and preached as a member of a Gospel team while in college.
While a senior he began pastoring a church plant and remained as senior pastor for eight of his 30 plus years of pulpit ministry. Steve's last two pastorates were church plants.
Kristie is the youngest of four children born into a loving and highly educated home. While in high school, a classmate invited Kristie to youth events at a local evangelical church, where she heard the Gospel and made a commitment of faith.
However, it was not until she became active in a campus ministry while attending the University of Washington that Kristie really began the discipleship process.
As a young adult she was a member of the core group that became a church plant in the Seattle area. That experience lit a fire in her heart, and, years later, after meeting Steve and becoming his wife, she was thrilled to once again take part in a church-planting ministry, this time in Spokane, Washington.
WAYS TO SUPPORT
Steve and Kristie by making a financial donation using a Credit Card or by Direct Debit (ACH).
Learn more about where this ministry happens
In colorful communities and along scenic highways, diverse people and landscapes span coast to coast
Iconic American traditions include Thanksgiving dinner, jazz music and the Super Bowl. They meld with eclectic examples of multicultural heritage: numerous local Chinatowns, family-owned taquerias and even cowboy boots, which originated among the nomadic Huns of eastern Europe.
The nation's landscape shows just as many contrasts — sandy beaches and rocky coastlines, open plains and vast deserts, rugged mountains and winding canyons, and abundant rivers and lakes.
The ideals of life and liberty that founded the United States have made the country one of the world's most prosperous, though not without dark chapters and present troubles. Crime, discrimination and ethics violations make regular headlines, and many people live below the national poverty level.
Families view education as essential to the pursuit of happiness, if not also a path to wealth and power for the most ambitious. Yet Americans also demonstrate a charitable spirit of generosity toward neighbors and nations in need.
Freedom of religion grants opportunity for all faiths, but Christianity holds particular influence in country's history and daily life.
Your participation with Missions Door supports ministry in the United States among college students, including many international students, in collaboration local churches. It also enables social outreach, church planting and leadership development in a wide variety of communities — among Native Americans and other cultural groups, and in urban and suburban settings where growing and changing demographics create new opportunities for the Gospel.
Cultural Snapshot
Aside from the Native American, Native Hawaiian and Native Alaskan populations, nearly all Americans and their ancestors immigrated to the United States.
Faith Fact
In a 2013 survey, 56% of Americans said that religion played a "very important role in their lives” — a larger number than any other wealthy nation.
Country Profile
Population: 320 million
Major Religions: 47% Protestant, 23% unaffiliated, 21% Catholic, 6% other
Languages: 82% English, 11% Spanish, various others
Literacy: 99%
Poverty: 16%
Ministry service area:
Harvest America
Ministry location:
Arizona, United States